Carlo Battaglia Biography
Matteo Basilè was born in 1974 in Rome. Among the first artists to discover the expressive potential of computer art.
He began his career in the mid-nineties, becoming one of the first artists in Europe to combine art and technology. Basilé's work is unique in its ability to reconcile apparently incompatible concepts such as the beautiful and the grotesque, the real and the surreal, the natural and the artificial, contaminating technology with the Italian artistic tradition to construct surreal and dreamlike images. His work takes the form of a continuous dialogue between East and West, between tradition and modernity, between sacred and profane, creating a new iconographic universe halfway between high-tech mannerism and a new surrealism in which reality and fiction overlap. Echoes of Caravaggio, the sumptuous scenes of the Roman Baroque, Flemish art and the deformed figures of Velázquez animate the artist's photographs and videos, creations that combine sculpture, architecture, painting and cinema. Exploring the nature of the human being, the artist develops a narrative that can be divided into subsequent chapters: “What remains of the Transavantgarde” (2006) “The Saints are Coming” (2007), “Thisoriented” (2009), “ Thishumanity” (2010), “Landing” (2012), “Unseen” (2014), “Pietra Santa” (2016), “Journey to the Center of the Earth” (2017) “Stardust” (2018), “Memento” (2019 ).
His personal exhibitions include: in 1996 “Martyrs and Saints” at L'Attico in Rome; in 1999 “Who is Who?” at the MAN Museum of Contemporary Art in Nuoro; in 2001 “Italian Digital Frame” at GNAM in Rome, and in 2005 “Tribes of Memory” again at GNAM; in 2012 “Thishumanity” at the Italian Cultural Institute in Madrid.
Today he lives and works in Rome
